Learning to Fall
by The Jolly Bounty
Summary: They stood there staring at each other. Their masks hid the emotions on their faces. Hers better than his...  set during the flashbacks in Story of a Girl


**Hey guys I'm probably going to do a sequel to Story of a girl.**

**This is a little story that tells us Jason's relationship with Dick while she was training to be Robin.**

**Since I'm making my own continuity teen titans is in it. Though since this is still about superheros no one stays dead for long right? Keep that in mind.**

**This is for Skyrill because though you don't know it I was having one horrible school day one of those oh-god-how-will-I-get-though-my-last-year days and then I found your comment on Story of a girl and it made me feel so much better**

**Thanks!**

**I don't own Batman**

Learning to fall

They stood there staring at each other.

Their masks hid the emotions on their faces.

Hers better than his

The girl seemed more nervous, she wore all purple except for her black mask, belts, gloves and boots.

The older male wore black with a dark blue eagle on the front of his clothes.

He couldn't believe her audacity to come here

Though it meant he got a good look at his _replacement_…

"Who are you meant to be?" The green shape shifter asked picking up the edge of her purple cloak, the girl spun on him pulling it from his grasp, ultimately she reacted with anger.

"I'm Spoiler!" She hissed, he held his hands up defensively

"Whoa! Sorry kid!" she turned back to the boy in black still unable to speak.

"I…" She finally got out "I… Hi…" He folded his arms and glared at her. She seemed to get the message and turned around "sorry I made a mistake coming here" She retreated though the large doors that led to outside of the tower.

"Yeah you did" he growled after her. He didn't get that girl. He may not want to be Robin anymore.

But that didn't give Bruce the right to give it to the first child with any skills!

How long had it been? A month before he got a call from Barbra saying that he had picked up some little girl he wanted to train to be the next Robin!

"_Hey Dick…"_

_Hearing her voice he wondered if he should just put the phone right back down_

"_Don't hang up!" She said knowing exactly what he was thinking, he sighed rubbing his eyes._

_He had been asleep when she called._

"_What is it Barbra?" He tried not to let the hostility leak into his voice but then he wondered why and gave up._

"_Dick… Batman found a new Robin" he stopped everything he had been doing, even forgetting to breath for a moment._

"_What?" He yelled_

"_Dick calm down" she was good he hadn't even started raging yet_

"_What did he find some boy who would obey him without even thinking?" he heard her snort on the other end._

"She's_ quite the opposite actually"_

"You know that girl Nightwing?" Raven asked calmly noticing how furious her team mate was.

"Is she an old friend?" StarFire added more curious

"She's nothing don't worry about it" he seethed before stamping off like a child to the workout room.

He was going to put this anger to use!

….

Jason had known this was a stupid idea.

And now she was crying

The Spoiler mask wasn't made to handle dumb ass reactions like this so she had to remove it. Her blond hair was soaked with sweat from all her stress. She wiped away the tears staining her back gloves.

She had fixed the Spoiler outfit for this little trip having promised Bruce she would not ware it out in the field again. But with how all the Titan's seemed to always be wearing their costumes she thought it would be better to come like this.

She hadn't expected that reaction from the ex boy wounder though…

Had Barbra told him how she was failing at her training…? That no matter what she couldn't pull off even half the moves he could…

Was he disappointed?

"_No it's just that unlike Bruce he realizes that you could never be Robin_" she pulled her hands over her ears in the vain hope that the dark voice would just disappear.

As the sobs became less frequent she started to think about things the things. Important things.

How mad Bruce was going to be when she got back?

How she was going to get food?

And where was she going to stay?

Jump city wasn't like Gotham, it seemed nicer but she doubted she could find anywhere to go.

Maybe she should just squat in a building for the night?

"Hello?" she blinked and turned, there she saw the orange skinned girl in skimpy purple clothes floating in the air by the roof. She waved realizing Jason had seen her. The blond girl stood up surprised this was StarFire!

"Hi?" She mumbled

"You are Spoiler correct? Do you have another name?" Jason nodded

"It's Jason Todd" the older girl nodded

"You can call me Kory" The orange girl smiled as she came closer to the young girl. "How do you know Nightwing Jason?" at that moment Kory touched the girl as she had read you did to comfort a child.

Jason reacted badly distancing herself form the alien and holding back sobs

"I'm…." She was angry now because of how he had treated her "I'm his successor! I'm the next Robin… I came to meet him but all he did was ignore and glare at me!" she wanted to punch something. Kory gave her a sympathetic look but that only made her madder "Leave me alone!" Jason yelled "No one wants me so I'll just leave!" with that she pulled her mask back on.

Though it wasn't built for crying it hid the tears pretty fucking well.

She aimed and shot her hook shot flying off into the distance

Kory decided not to follow her.

….

When the alien girl returned back to the large T that was their base she ran into a hasty Cyborg

"Kory! You picked a bad time to go out" he looked like he wasn't panicking but he was getting there.

"What is it?" she asked as he led her inside to the main room. The other titans were looking over information on a screen.

"Someone attacked the city and it looks bad" Beastboy explained as she came to the group

"Not just the city the other Titan's homes… everything was hit but here" Nightwing added "whoever it was didn't want to take a chance that we'd be harmed, but at the same time they wanted us to know it's a message to us" his eyes narrowed under the mask. He was staring intently at the map of places hit.

"What is it dude?" The green boy asked

"Gotham wasn't hit" he stated "all the titan's homes that could be were but mine…"

"Because they only wanted our attention?" StarFire suggested, the boy shook his head

"I think there's another reason" his phone started ringing. He pulled it out of one of the pouches from his belt and looked at the display it was an unknown number tensing he answered.

"Hello?"

"It's me Spoiler" he gritted his teeth his replacement sure had timing

"We're kind of busy right now… how did you get my number anyway?" he allowed his annoyance come though in his voice.

"Barbra in case of emergency or something, not important right now Dickie Bird! I saw something really suspicious on this street some guys in black they had these weird half orange masks… Turns out they were robots" Dick's eyes widened at her description

"Where did you see them, hold your position!" he motioned for the other titans to get ready to go, there was silence on the end of the line "Spoiler?"

"That's a bit hard… Let's just say there were a lot of robots…" she finally said "Can you track my phone by any chance?"

This was the kid that was replacing him?

….

When the titans did track her phone using the plane to get there fast in case she was in trouble. They found that the truck they had been tracking had hit a wall and Spoiler was standing next to it she looked unimpressed and her clothes were in a bad way.

"I just fixed this thing" she sighed as the others turned up "so… what's the plan? Who's the guy behind this?"

"None of your business" Nightwing told her he could see her glaring at him though the costume. She then folded her arms

"Fine I won't tell you where the hide out is then!"

"You know?" Beastboy asked she nodded

"Let her come" Raven said

"Another pair of hands could come in handy" Cyborg added

"I agree!" StarFire nodded.

"Fine… Where is it?" He expected the girl to ask him to say please or something but instead he saw something change about the girl he couldn't figure it out.

"It's under the river, the guy said something about a pair of rocks by a drain pipe" the group went back to the plane. Jason sat with StarFire.

On the way a thought crossed Dick's mind. This could all be a trap

He doubted Spoiler was in on it but how she overheard the information… If this was who he thought it was.

And that would mean that someone was back from the dead

It was also highly likely he wanted Spoiler to overhear.

Dick counted to ten he needed to calm down he needed to figure out Slade's plan.

….

The drain pipe looked ominous

Inside was completely black.

It surprised him when Spoiler walked forward

"I'll go in!" She said he couldn't quite understand her, why would you volunteer to go down a pitch black hole with the possibility of no return. Since no one spoke the girl made her way to the tunnel. Dick realized something was off about this.

The top of the entrance was cracking!

"Hey!" He yelled leaping forward grabbing the ten year old and both of them fell into the tunnel the front of it falling apart as they did.

There was no exit now.

"Er…. What now?" Dick turned and glared at the preteen girl as he was about to speak a metal door fell down just in front of the now closed off exit and lights came on revealing a very dry and well light gray pipe. Dick sighed

"We follow the pipe I guess…" He knocked on the metal "if they do figure out a way though that we shouldn't be near it when they try it out" Spoiler nodded she stood up unlike Dick she hadn't fallen on her feet.

As they got further and further down the pipe the silence became almost a point of tension for Jason. She wanted to talk to the ex Robin but at the same time he'd only ever been hostile so she didn't.

Dick was just happy the kid wasn't a chatter box

As they progressed Dick actually found himself becoming annoyed by the lack of conversation. He thought about asking the girl a question but every single one he thought of outside of the generic would probably get a suspicious look.

He tried anyway.

"So how's the Bat?" He asked the girl turned to look at him

"Which one? There's thousands in that cave" he rolled his eyes of cause she had some sarcastic remark ready. He was about to reply but the lights went out.

"Fuck" Jason muttered.

There was this sound… the sound of gears moving.

"Don't move!" Dick ordered

"Because walking around in the dark sounds like such a good idea" Jason wasn't sure why she had to reply sarcastically maybe it was because of his earlier treatment of her.

The lights turned on and the hallway had now become a large open space.

Yes a large open space filled with combat ready robots

"Oh damn it to hell!" Spoiler said as she and Nightwing got ready to fight their way through the robots.

"Can you handle this?" The boy asked unsure of the girl's combat skills. He just heard a snort.

"Just make sure you can handle it Golden boy" The girl ran forward dodging one robot at close proximity so that it hit another then kicked it's legs from beneath it. She then did a back flip onto another using a taser to break it.

Nightwing had many more toys at his disposal that Spoiler he threw bombs to take out large groups and dodged mostly only using his fists when needed. Every time he caught sight of the girl in the fray he saw her moving without thought breaking robot after robot. He shivered at how it looked when the ten year old forced the head of one of the humanoid robots right off. She was unrestrained to say the least but he thought that was probably because these were robots not people.

As quickly as the fight started it ended, the robots just stopped.

"Wh….What's going on" the girl panted out.

"We're being played with" or tested he added in his head.

The lights went out again after the same noise as earlier they returned

But there was a wall between himself and Spoiler.

"Spoiler!" he yelled hitting it in the hopes that he would hear her from the other side… he didn't.

….

Jason was trying to stay calm

There was a wall between her and Dick she could tell that because she could feel it however it was still dark.

"Perhaps in my want to find a worthy apprentice I acted to hastily."

Jason told herself to calm down search for the source of the voice.

"Who would have thought that the perfect child would appear, once Robin had grown up" The lights turned on.

Jason would hazard a guess that this was the boss of the robots. Since he had the same mask with only slight differences like his had an eye. His hands were behind his back as he took a step towards her she took one back.

"Sorry dude I have a mentor" she said "I don't need another one"

"Hmph?" he seemed so calm…. That unnerved her even more. "Didn't you run away because he only saw you as a replacement of the Robin that grew up?" Jason rushed at him

"Don't act so fucking calm!" she cried out throwing a punch, he blocked and kneed her in the stomach, she coughed up blood.

"Tell me why are you learning how to jump around the field like a monkey when your skills lie in the offensive…" Jason wiped the blood away with her glove "if you were my apprentice I would teach you how to take out as many foes as there were in that room in less than the amount of time I allotted both you and Nightwing"

She glared, so that had been it a test to see how good they were.

"Quite frankly I think Batman is squandering your potential all so you can be like your big brother…"

"Shut up!" She moved in for another attack this one wasn't head on but to the side he countered easily knocking her back.

"Do you feel some sort of allegiance to him? In the end you'll end up just like Nightwing disillusioned, bitter and hating the next child who takes your place" She attacked again, he countered again and sighed "This is getting us nowhere. You're missing the fundamental facts"

"And what's that?" She hissed, he paused

"You're not Nightwing and you could never be a Robin like him" she stared at him "you came to this city because you felt hopeless, no matter what Batman trained you in gymnastics things someone your age could never do and even if you did complete it there was no congratulations, nothing at all. Just another task" He knew he was getting to her, the look on her face was no longer angry but sad and pitiful "you came here to find Nightwing, you wanted a confrontation with the man you felt was the cause of all your problems… But at the same time you wanted to meet the person you idolised" she lowered her hands form her fighting pose shaking slightly, Jason hated being analysed it was worse when someone was getting it right "you can never be Nightwing" she lowered her head

"I know that" her voice was quiet; she turned her head up revealing furious eyes. "But what you don't understand is that in the end I will take that over ever working with scum like you!" She leaped forward and earned herself another beating.

"Pathetic" he said as he knocked her out "such a waste of potential just like the first one" he left her there.

….

When Dick found Jason the other Titan's had broken into the base and had come to find them. He carried her outside to find Batman standing there waiting for him.

He quickly took Jason from the boy going over her body looking for any life threatening wounds

"It seems Slade was working with another villain, he was the one who attacked the other cities. Slade only attacked here. His only target was you!" the Dark knight glared Dick.

The boy was shocked he had never seem Bruce look that way.

He just stared at Bruce for a second before looking at his team mates; they got the message and left the two alone.

"His target was your new sidekick I'd say" he looked down at the girl in disgust "she only seems to be good at destroying things" the look on the Bat's face turned to amusement.

"I've noticed that's why I've been teaching her how to dodge. Otherwise I'm afraid she'd get herself killed." He turned back to Dick "Come back to Gotham she could use a teacher who knows what he's talking about… "Dick glared at him

"I'm not going to come back Bruce because all you care about now is that little brat!" Nightwing left returning to his group leaving Batman to carry Jason back to the Batplane.

"Bruce?" She whispered he glanced down she had just become conscious

"I'm glad you're my mentor…" She closed her eyes again.

**Now thats done**

**If you go to my deviantart page (Skytailheaven's end) theres a picture up of Jason**

**And remember Folks don't flame unless you have an extinguisher! **


End file.
